Demolition time: First eyesore house torn down for Lorain County land bank (with video)

MORNING JOURNAL/SAM GREENEOnlookers watch as Denes Concrete tears down a dilapidated home to become part of the Lorain County Land Bank on Cooper-Foster Road in Elyria Township, Ohio, on Saturday, Nov. 3, 2012. The Land Bank is paying for demolitions with money from Ohio Attorney General's Office from court settlement with banks due to improper foreclosures. 100 homes will be demolished as part of the $3.2 million project.

ELYRIA TOWNSHIP -- Mary Lou Dembinski can finally look out her windows without seeing the dilapidated building next door after contractors hired by the Lorain County Land Reutilization Corp. knocked down the structure yesterday.

The property at 43147 North Ridge Road had been abandoned for most of the last decade. It had holes in the roof, mold growing on the basement windows, vermin living in the cracks and a lingering stench, Dembinski said.

"It is pretty bad when you can look out your window and see nothing but holes in a roof," she said. "Living next door to something where the lawn is six foot high, nobody wants to do that."

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Vagrants would sometimes use the home as a place to sleep, she said. At night, if she listened from her living room, she could even hear drywall collapsing in the building.

Yesterday, more than drywall collapsed as an excavator smashed through the building, making it the first demolition carried out by the LCLRC.

Dembinski said she was elated to have the eyesore finally taken care of.

"I can't express that enough," Dembinski said. "This is only going to make things better, the property value has to go up for the people around us now."

The LCLRC, or the county land bank, has received $3.2 million in funding from a state court settlement of $75 million from banks over improper foreclosure lawsuits.

Lorain Mayor Chase Ritenauer has pushed for a land bank since taking office, he said.

"(Yesterday) was the start of some very good things, getting these eyesores eliminated and out of our communities and neighborhoods," he said.

Ritenauer estimates there are more than 800 properties in the city of Lorain alone that need to be demolished. Lorain's Nuisance Property Task Force has been identifying vacant properties and issuing property violations for rundown buildings.

"We have an inventory that we have to deal with," he said. "These are homes that will probably never be occupied again and they have to go."

If a community has a poor infrastructure, businesses will not want to invest in the community, he said.

"I think it is absolutely critical," Ritenauer said of the demolitions. "I think housing is a key component in attracting businesses."

Dembinski, a 30-year resident in the neighborhood, praised the LCLRC's efforts, saying that not only did it remove an eyesore, but it gave the neighbors a sense of security now that the hazard has been dealt with.

She and her husband are even interested in purchasing the property once it has been cleaned up.

"We want to build it and have it as an extra lawn where we won't have to deal with that nightmare," she said.

Now that the building is gone, when the sun rises over Dembinski's home, she'll be able to look out her window and see the sky.

"To be able to look out the window and actually see daylight and not have to have all that mess, it is absolutely wonderful," she said.